Most airlines recognize Twitter and Facebook as effective and easy methods of both informing customers and mitigating public-relations disasters. The question really is: How comfortable are they in their social-media skin?

For someone on the frontline in a press office when a story hits, it can certainly feel that stories move at great speed, continually eluding attempts to get on top of them. However, scratch under the surface and there are often periods of time when the story is in fact spreading slowly.